Portrait

the rhythmic prophecies jazz latin ensemble played at barefoot last night, and it was another night spent listening to good live music, drinking relatively (i’m not a snob, just specific) good wine and catching up with good friends. nazreen had a more decriptive post about the band itself. the music was good and lively, and had me wishing i had worked up enough incentive to go and dance before they finished up, which is when three of us started moving towards the front where there were already (clearly much braver) people dancing. also, the cellist, and the pianist (as J and i realized much too late) were really cute. latin/hispanic music is always infectious, and normally has a lot of emphasis on the steady beats (usually produced by drums), and it was nice to see a fluent blend of good jazz and good latin music. i hope barefoot keeps doing this, and bringing home artists who have a fresh appeal and experiment with new kinds of sound. colombo is starved for real performances by international artists, musical or otherwise. dont tell me that us having wash-out, over-the-hill type bands like kool and the gang is ‘real’. as we saw with the womad sri lanka festival of drums last year, and the concert for peace reconciliation just recently, the local audiences are ever prepared to see and hear new things and appreciate it.

barefoot is always interesting for the people that come there, if nothing else. there’s a lot of different people, ranging from kids who look too young to be smoking but do so anyway, to the cream of colombo’s intellectual celebrity types : the english theatre personalities, the writers, the photgraphers, the dancers. and there are the regulars (everyone from tim to mon’s not-so-little-anymore brother), and the not-so-regulars who try really hard to look like regulars. there’s always interesting coversation, interesting introductions to even more interesting people and the ever so interesting wine (or more illegal substances) induced behaviour of people who are by day really serious big shots on the social ladder.